TracyB wrote:Why was registration here disabled for years?!? I tried joining a long time ago. I tried it again last week and shockingly it worked. So if there's any other lurkers here who read but always wanted to post, they have allowed registration again.

Its why you're the only person posting here. Its not that people don't want to, they couldn't!

redpill wrote:I've never heard of this crime until i just watched it on People Magazine Investigates S02E04 Connecticut Horror

sisters Michaela Petit 11 and Hayley Petit 17

I did a paper on this case in college years ago. Did insane amounts of research on it(too much actually) and wished I hadn't. While it is not the worst home invasion case, it is easily the most disturbing. The motive for the crime was not robbery. The motive in this case was raping Micheala.

Joshua was at the supermarket that night and Micheala and her mother had the unfortunate and fateful luck of going there that night. He saw Micheala walking down one of the aisles and wanted to have sex with her. He followed them home and then left to talk with one of his convict buddies(Steven). THis is when the robbery plan is dreamed up and Steven has no idea that robbery is merely going to be a byproduct of the horror they inflict on this family. For the record, under no circumstances am I trying to minimize Steven's role in the crime. Its just a simple fact that he didn't really know what he was truly getting into.

So they break in, beat the Dr. to within an inch of his life, toss him in the basement, and then the REAL purpose of their visit can be implemented.

HOme invasions are IMO the most fascinating and complex crime. There are unknown elements at work during these crimes that are only known by the victims and killers. It's like a dance with the devil and an infinite amount of scenarios can play out. The victims play a role in this dance as well. How they react to such a horrifying intrusion can significantly alter how the crime plays out.

Ms. Petit made critical mistakes that night but I am NOT blaming her for the crime. No one would know how to act in such a nightmare but she did her and her family no favors by how she dealt with the intrusion. The first mistake....

She tried relating to Steven early in the crime. This is understandable. Its basically learned by watching crime shows. I believe its a mistake and they shoulod veer away from acting like this is what to do. I understand the concept, it's to humanize yourself to the perpetrator(s). There is a big problem with this. It can backfire which is exactly what happened here. It put both men on edge.

Second mistake...

This mistake is the worst and almost unforgiveable. She left with Steven to go to the bank and let Joshua(the pedophile) stay at the house alone with Micheala and Haley. I know why she did it. She was planning on getting help at the bank and would hopefully put an end to this nightmare. It was still a mistake. Dont EVER leave your children alone in the midst of a crime in progress. THis is when the crime escalated from just a "robbery" to pure evil.

The rape/assault of Micheala. Officially it was oral copulation and he took photos of Micheala during it but one of the reporters following the case(who I will not name) implied that the assault went further than that. He even allowed her to take a quick shower when she asked. Poor sweetheart.

Hayley was a mere aftethought and verging on invisible during this crime(which I find disturbing), and take into account this crime lasted for hours on end. It helps point to the real motive which was Micheala.

Joshua had humanized Michaela to the point of referring to her by her nickname(KK) while at the same time both girls are being dehumanized by being tied to their beds with pillow cases covering their heads. This also reveals the true motive of the crime.

By the time their mother and Stephen get back from the bank, the crime is essentially over and its unfortunate that both men do not walk away. They looked in the basement and noticed Dr. Petit had managed to escape. They overreacted to the extreme. THis is when Joshua convinces Stephen to rape and kill Mrs. Petit and also when they pour gasoline in the house and douse both girls in gasoline and then set the place on fire. Its a page right out of Dante's Inferno.

They were surrounded by cops and just like with Columbine, a passive police force helped lay the foundation for the coming horror. If they go in right when they get there, all three of them survive. They didn't, and Micheala, Haley, and Mrs. petit had to pay for that decision with their lives.

There are elements of this crime still unknown, or at least unknown back when I researched it. While the rape/assault of Micheala was mentioned at trial, this element of the crime was played down, likely out of respect for the Petit family. IMO it isn't smart to play down the primary motive of the crime and I hope the FBI interviewed Joshua at some point to learn more about what really happened. Like I said before, home invasions are very complex and now that they are becoming more common, they warrant much further study to understand root causes, motives, and how the scene is in a state of flux with a give and take dynamic going on between killer(s) and victim(s).

I should watch that show you mentioned. Maybe a few more details have come out about the crime.

welcome to the blog, there's been other posters like murdermysteryreader and another one on a suicide/unresolved death

personaly i don't know how to register for this forum. the way i got onto this forum is that the admin invited me here from the time she and i were both posters on crimeshots

the People Magazine episode clearly states that the original motive was robbery, and had actors discussing money, and the ransom demands at the bank.

they state that while Joshua was alone with the young girl, he molested her and took photos on his cell phone. and his history of arson and pyromania.

i'm just the messenger.

yeah watching this documentaries on murders, including home invasion, has resulted in me taking substantial changes in my lifestyle. like always closing and locking doors and windows, always checking everything before going to bed, never letting in strangers, even if they need to make a phone call or drink of water, stuff like that.

While I haven't watched that show yet, I know what they claim the motive was on the surface. You don't have to dig very deep to see the crime for what it really was.

What sparked the chain reaction was Joshua at the store by himself and stumbling upon Michaela. Young girls, even rich young girls don't have anything more than allowance money. he quickly hatched the robbery scheme to get Stephen on board with the crime. It's not a coincidence that he waited for Stephen and Mrs. Petit to leave before raping Micheala. When they come back, all hell breaks loose.

i'm just the messenger.

I wasn't criticizing your post about it. I was just pointing out that the case was very complex and the motive went much deeper than the robbery angle that is pushed in the official narative.

yeah watching this documentaries on murders, including home invasion, has resulted in me taking substantial changes in my lifestyle. like always closing and locking doors and windows, always checking everything before going to bed, never letting in strangers, even if they need to make a phone call or drink of water, stuff like that.

I had a sudden revelation similar to this in college. While I had always been interested in crime and was heading towards that field in college, a specific murder completely blew my mind and had a major impact on me. I could relate to her.

It was the murder of Eve Carson.

It was freshman year. While I had originally lived in the dorm, me and one of my friends rented a nice apartment off campus. She partied even more than I did and wound up staying at her boyfriend's apartment a lot which meant I was home alone 3-4 days a week. A few months later, Eve was murdered. When the details came out, it immediately gave me chills as I realized that could easily happen to me. She was just living her life and those two monsters entered her apartment, abducted her, drove her in her own SUV, robbed a few hundred bucks from her ATM, and then took her to a desolate road and blew her head off with a shotgun.

Just the fact her life could so easily be destroyed in an instant over a few hundred bucks simply because she didn't lock her door that evening blew my mind. They had no reason to kill her. I knew one of her friends casually and this made it even worse.

For several years I would double and triple check my locks, would watch who was around me as I get into the car, etc. I still think about her to this very day.

That experience and another one much more personal is what sent me down a different road and led to me becoming a financial analyst and abandoning my dream of becoming an FBI agent. It was in 2010. I had reconnected with a boy I liked in high school. He was really shy, soft spoken, etc. and had never told me he liked me. We were in friends mode for awhile and finally went out. On our second date, we went to a late movie and went to a diner afterwards. It was about 1 in the morning. I had to get gas as we left the diner.

Two guys approached me out of the blue. One started coming on to me and the other was scoping out the scene. I was scared shitless. To make matters worse, Jason didn't even get out of the car. He was just watching it unfold. I think this emboldened them more as they could perceive that he wasn't a threat to them. One of them started saying "we were going for a ride" and I knew what he meant. They were going to carjack us and take us somewhere as they clearly didn't have a car there. I told them I would give them money(I had about 600 bucks on me) but in the middle of this exchange, a guy pulled up to the gas pump behind me. It saved my life. It brought me back to reality and I immediately got back in the car and took off. I saw them walking away in the distance.

Needless to say, this ruined any potential relationship I would've had with Jason. I still cant believe he didn't get out of the car during this incident. I understand being scared as I was scared too but holy shit...don't freeze like that and don't freeze when its a woman having to deal with the threat.

I should've reported it to the cops but since nothing happened besides a verbal exchange, I let it go but it did impact me. My interest in crime dropped dramatically. It was a couple years after college when I renewed my interest but now following true crime stories is just a hobby.

personaly i don't know how to register for this forum. the way i got onto this forum is that the admin invited me here from the time she and i were both posters on crimeshots

Who runs the site now? Its like in a state of limbo. Its dead yet its alive. The forum has clearly been dead for years yet your section of the site is somewhat active. Its you posting but your threads clearly get views so it definitely has readers.

the people magazine documentary implies the event that changed everything was that the burglars unexpected found the dr and father on the coach sleeping, which screwed up their plan. their original plan was to find him in the bedroom and subdue and rob him, but not kill them.

i'm watching this and i'm thinking wow, this family has some heavy sleepers. the father was being beaten by a baseball bat on the coach and the 2 girls and mother slept through it. when they entered the bedroom the girls and woman were sound asleep while the father was unconcious from the baseball bats.

i know all about eva carson. it's why i always close and lock my doors.

personaly i don't know how to register for this forum. the way i got onto this forum is that the admin invited me here from the time she and i were both posters on crimeshots

Who runs the site now? Its like in a state of limbo. Its dead yet its alive. The forum has clearly been dead for years yet your section of the site is somewhat active. Its you posting but your threads clearly get views so it definitely has readers.

redpill wrote:the people magazine documentary implies the event that changed everything was that the burglars unexpected found the dr and father on the coach sleeping, which screwed up their plan. their original plan was to find him in the bedroom and subdue and rob him, but not kill them.

i'm watching this and i'm thinking wow, this family has some heavy sleepers. the father was being beaten by a baseball bat on the coach and the 2 girls and mother slept through it. when they entered the bedroom the girls and woman were sound asleep while the father was unconcious from the baseball bats.

i know all about eva carson. it's why i always close and lock my doors.

Oh I agree (and believe them) that they originally had no plans on murdering any of them. It was a massive escalation from both guys MOs. For starters, they 'worked' alone. Joshua had a bizarre envy of middle and upper middle class families that bordered on being a fetish. His MO was breaking into nice homes, looking around, and stealing a few items. Sometimes he didn't even steal anything. Stephen was just a standard, every day middle aged ex convict loser. Nothing about him stood out. They were an odd combination.

I gotta watch this show. If they are still downplaying what happened to Micheala and focusing more on the robbery, its unfortunate. they should know that painting false narratives of crimes(even out of respect for victims) does not help and like I mentioned earlier, home invasions warrant much further study so they can be better understood. In most home invasions, murder is NOT in the original plans, regardless of what those original plans were. There are unknown triggers and escalations and the longer the event lasts, the much worse shape the victims are going to be in.

The tripwire for murder was the assault on Micheala. Up until that moment, both killers and victims had breathing room. They could've easily walked away. At that point they've only assaulted Dr. petit and while technically invaded their home and could be considered kidnapping, it could've easily been pled down. It's interesting that the assault on Micheala and the drive to get the money happened at the same time. It shows how both men had different things motivating them during this crime.

The randomness of this crime is eerie. If Micheala walks down a different aisle in that store at the right time, none of this happens. While I doubt it gets mentioned in that documentary, it was speculated years ago that Joshua might have known Michaela somehow, at least casually. if true, Joshua sees her in the store, jogs his memory, he starts wanting her badly, and then plans get set into motion. This theory was speculated due to Michaela being such a focus during the crime.

I just checked Amazon and surprisingly there's two books on this case.

I just ordered the first one. A virtual coin flip. The second book is more about the town's reaction to the crime itself.

In one of the reviews, I saw this:

The result makes one shudder at what may have actually transpired in that house.

Yeah the veil has not completely lifted regarding the full details of the family's nightmare. Remember, this ordeal lasted seven hours. That is a long time and probably felt like an eternity for their victims. The killers have no incentive to come clean on all of it, the girls forever silenced, and Mr. Petit was incapacitated. If Joshua didn't record part of the assault on Micheala, that part may have never been known, at least in any detail.

The camera footage from inside the store is eerie, mainly in the innocence of it all and knowing the horrors that are now creeping into their lives unknowingly.

I really feel for Hayley as well, the one I can relate to the most in this story. She had just graduated high school and headed to Dartmouth. She was going places.

I find her role in the tragedy which comes across as a non-entity to be disturbing. Here's this beautiful young college girl in the house, has no control, and is at the mercy of these two maniacs, and its like she's flying under the radar. I cant even imagine how she felt. Obviously she's scared shitless but I'd like to know if it dawned on her at some point that Michaela is the target and they have no interest in her. Does this cause her to let her guard down? Is she intentionally staying quiet so she doesn't bring more attention on herself? if she's simply entered big sister mode, how is she able to shield Michaela from any horrors? Does self preservation kick in and she's thinking more about herself than anything else? I mean no offense to her when I say that. Most people would have self preservation at the top of the list if going through a similar experience.

The victims weren't able to comprehend this due to being in distress but in this situation, the balance of power was out of wack and they actually held some cards in their favor. Its unfortunate that Mrs. Petit didn't understand this. The issue of going to the bank was not handled well. At that moment, the victims have the advantage. They need her to go to the bank or this either cant end or they have to leave with no money. She rushed it. Its understandable as you want it over with as quickly as possible but she should've made more demands. Michaela comes or she doesn't go, although this creates favoritism and a mother unlikely to make such a choice. Maybe make Haley go and she'll stay with Michaela.

The children should not have been left unsupervised. She had to know there was a good chance of everything going to shit once she got back with the money, and also should've realized that leaving the girls alone with the young guy was NOT a good idea. Your daughters are tied up in each of their beds and more vulnerable than they've ever been. YOu don't leave!!

I don't have children(yet) but if I was at my aunt's house and god forbid a home invasion happened while there, I'll give them money but under no circumstances am I going anywhere or doing anything without my young cousin Nicole.

The safety of children in the house needs to be the number one priority in these situations.

redpill wrote:wow you got all this information from books? i'm impressed.

During a few of my college courses, we had access to a crime database that was incredible. In a few cases(including this one) I also talked to local reporters and LE.

so do you live in Connecticut?

No. I lived in Virgina and went to college in North Carolina. Most of the cases I researched were on the east coast.

oh what was your major?

I switched gears midstream. Business Administration. A bit of regret I suppose but a lot of people go the practical route, including many friends. You enter college with your initial dreams and after awhile, reality starts setting in, you get a bit antsy, and you start looking for the way to make the most money right out the gates.

The camera footage from inside the store is eerie, mainly in the innocence of it all and knowing the horrors that are now creeping into their lives unknowingly.

Here's a few images from it.

Is he scoping out Michaela at that moment? Creepy.

I just found an article where a few of Joshua's comments about Michaela are posted.

Before cutting off her clothes, he said talked to 11-year-old Michaela in her bedroom about music, “school and summer plans.”

Then, as the school girl lay tied to her bed, Komisarjevsky claimed, “one thing led to another and I ended up … performing oral sex on her — on KK,” referring to his victim by the family nickname her sister and mother gave her.

Disturbing. He was grooming her from the moment this started. While he's supposed to be there for robbery, he's focused on the 11 year old girl and having conversations with her about music and other things she's interested in. My god. What was her mother and Hayley thinking during all this?

The taped police interview got even more disturbing when Det. Joseph Vitello asked the suspect, “Was it against her will?” to which Komisarjevsky replied: “Um, it started off as against her will and then like, she wasn’t like resisting or anything, so I just kept doing it you know,” adding that he thought Michaela was 14 or 16.

Before he assaulted her, Komisarjevsky said he was “taken aback” at how calm Michaela was.

“She had this look like on her face that she understood, like you know that, yeah we were here, and we were invading her home and that she understood that we wouldn’t hurt them and we’d just be on our way,” Komisarjevsky said in his statement to police.

redpill wrote:did your research give any details on how they entered the home? did they break window glass?

Good question. I don't remember the exact details of entry. Been too long. This coming weekend when I go to my mom's house I'm gonna dig through all my crap in her basement to see if I still have any of that work I did.

I doubt they broke windows. Making extra noise would've alterted the neighbors that something was wrong. They didn't have to break anything actually. They lucked into Dr. Petit sleeping on the porch and also lucked into a baseball bat being in the yard. Instead of forcing him by gunpoint, they beat him half to death and tossed him in the basement.

Other than Joshua's desire for Michaela, these guys had no plan. Supposedly they planned on just tying up the family, robbing them, and getting out. The fact that they immediately assaulted the man/breadwinner of the household is something else that implies the motive had nothing to do with robbery. You need him alive. For all they know, Mrs. petit is a housewife who has no access to any money. They didn't even talk to him before assaulting him.

Another interesting fact is how Dr. Petit being incapacitated likely alters how everything plays out. The three victims likely believe he is dead and the killers were shocked when they looked down there at the last minute and found he had escaped.

Something spooked these guys. Stephen drove to the gas station to get gas in cans he got from the Petit home. That is frightening. This means they are already planning on torching the house before Stephen takes Mrs. petit to the bank and the sexual assault of Michaela. It just adds more fuel to the fire(pardon the terrible pun) on the fact that Mrs. Petit never should've left her children in there alone. She has to be aware of this gas purchase. Something else must have happened in that house to trigger such a response.

We will never know the answer to this but I'd like to know why she told the bank that these guys were being nice to them. It defies all logic. Take into account Michaela is literally being sexually assaulted as she tells the bank this info, her husband had been beat nearly to death by these men and for all she knows he IS dead, and something else must have happened earlier to trigger the men to buy gas to torch the house. There is no reason on earth to downplay what these men are doing when you only have this one chance to get help, yet she's doing it.

how exactly did they enter the home, actual entry? People said it was through the basement

one reason why People said robbery was the stated motive is that they have cell phone text records between the 2 perps prior to the crime, and both discussed robbery and money, prior to entering the home, not sex.

Joshua had no incentive to mention sex to Steven. Why would he break into a home and risk prison so a casual buddy can molest a little girl? He had to bring robbery up to get him onboard.

Yeah they talk about robbery in texts. This is after Joshua had spotted Michaela, followed them home, and then left and came up with the robbery plan.

The facts of the case point out the real motive. It is always revolving around Michaela and actual robbery a mere afterthought. Also take into consideration they are already planning on torching the house before the trip to the bank even happens. Not during the trip to the bank, but before. LIke I mentioned in that post, if robbery is your motive, you don't bash the skull in of the breadwinner before entering the house.

They were considering cutting their losses and getting out before they even had a single dime. The moment they decide to take Mrs. Petit to the bank, Michaela is sexually assaulted while the other daughter remains untouched.

how exactly did they enter the home, actual entry? People said it was through the basement

I thought it was through the front door after assaulting Dr. Petit. I'll be getting the book I ordered in a couple days. I plan on reading it while this crime is still on my mind.

However they did it, it was quiet. Hard to believe no one woke up during that initiial assault.

The problem with the "rich family" thing is that Joshua cant know that beforehand. He has no idea how much money these people have. he targets them in the store(there's proof of this), follows them, and he simply lucks into them driving to a nice home. Michaela is on his radar regardless of the family's income bracket. The fact he follows them is proof of this. Michaela and Mrs. Petit weren't wearing anything that could make someone assaume they are rich.

both demanded money, and one of the went to the bank with the mother.

again there's no time travel but if they had stored a ton of cash and gave it to them, would michael be molested or woudl they take the money and leave?

Good question. A lot of houses had safes. Maybe if they hadn't beat Dr. Petit they might have got more money.

Taking him out of the equation was a huge mistake if you want money and that's your reason being there. They were reduced to getting Mrs. Petit's line of credit at the bank which was only 15k. I guarantee he had access to a hell of a lot more money than 15k.

It would be like breaking into the Ramsey house, bludgeoning John, and then asking Patsy for money.

Someone who would do that really isn't there for money. Money is secondary.